Boot Pocket

New thing today, used my long boots as a pocket for my work keycard & stuff. Lol I love using it as a pocket. 

Making Habits, Breaking Habits by Jeremy Dean

New thing today, finished the book Making Habits, Breaking Habits  -Why we do things, why we don't and how to make any changes stick by Jeremy Dean. The title sounded fabulous, but overall I felt it was lacking in the promise of "how to make changes stick" on the cover. It was a quick and easy read. Mainly it's a lot of essays about studies on psychology and how our habits work and what we do and what triggers us. A lot of it is fairly common knowledge stuff, at least to me. I didn't really learn a whole lot of new things about habits, although there were some good nuggets I'm going to share.

It delves into how our subconscious is actually influencing our daily habits, influenced by our environment and other factors. How our intentions cannot necessarily overcome some of the subconscious habits we have. It also talks about how small incremental habit updates are better than trying to do a complete makeover on things. Having a "if... then...." plan is helpful. Also just having reminders and environmental things to help trigger us to helpful behaviors are good. Being mindful was good. Overall some good stuff, but not wow-ing.

It was alright. I finished it in 3-4 nights reading through quickly. Like I said, easy enjoyable read, glazed over some parts, but talks about habits more than prescribes any good help with changing them. They are mentioned anecdotally and throughout, but it's all the common knowledge stuff we all know and have heard about, just all put together in this book. I'd give this a good read - maybe 6 or 7 out of 10. 

Baked Eggplant - Salting and Following Recipe

New thing today, tried baked eggplant following this recipe I found online. I made an incredibly successful baked eggplant a previous night impromptu, and decided to try salting and following the recipe for this eggplant. Turned out not good and not nearly as tasty as my own concoction. I salted the eggplant and drained out the extra water. Then baked it and added the olive oil with a brush, the salt and parmesan. They turned out way too salty and texture not as nice as I liked. Next time I will do it like I originally made it. This time, mine turned out better than the recipe :)

My Friend - Offer Accepted - House :)

New thing today, my friend got her offer for a house accepted!!!! :) She's in the process of getting a real home! She moved, she lives in a more affordable part of America (not Southern California) and well she's been in the market for houses, and now is on her way to becoming a homeowner!

She is the first of my friends to actually get her own house. Everyone else that's a close friend has a condo or an apartment. Ah the joys of Southern California affordability.

I am beyond excited for her, and this is pretty remarkable and awesome news.

CHEERS FRIEND!!!!! Congratulations and hope the home-making process is a good one!

So excited!

Battleship (2012)

New thing today, watched Battleship (2012). It was pretty awesome ridiculous and I enjoyed it! It's a very macho action alien fighting manly characters movie. I sort of really loved different parts. One was the opening scene where the guy is trying to impress the girl. I predicted a few plot turns, and there was a great part where they got the old guys to help kick some ass. No spoilers, but basically, this was a lot of action and I enjoyed it! Ridiculousness! BATTLESHIP! Pretty silly stuff, but ya, pretty great.

Baked Sweet Potatoes

New thing today, baked sweet potatoes. This was incredibly easy and we had a relative make it and it turned out delicious, so decided to try it ourselves. All you do is wash/scrub the potato whole, stab a few times with fork tines and bake at 400 for 45-60 minutes. We baked them around 60 minutes and they turned out super soft and mushy. I would probably bake it for less time in the future as I like them firmer, but overall they were way easy and tasty. We'll be doing this again - and it's easy and healthy! It's something that I'm going to go for this year with cooking.

This Is The End (2013)

New thing today, watched This Is The End (2013). I was surprised how much I liked this. It was so stupid and funny. It was an odd and interesting combination of funny and scary. Really really enjoyed it. Some great performances from the guys, and they were being ridiculous and funny. There were a ton of cameos too which were pretty great. I actually got surprised and screamed in the middle of one scene which was cool. I really really liked this. If you're in the mood for comedy and action and apocalypse, this is pretty great.